E-cigarettes face warnings, sales ban for kids

Ruben Fleitas using an e-cigarette Thursday outside NJ Vapors in North Arlington, a store that carries the tobacco alternatives.

Ivelisse Archila swears electronic cigarettes saved her from a two-pack-a-day smoking habit, and she thinks the government should promote them as a healthy alternative to smoking rather than impose regulations on the increasingly popular devices.

“I vape all day and I’m not getting carcinogens,” she said Thursday as she shopped at Flash Vapor in Little Falls. “It’s the best thing that happened to me.”

Customers at NJ Vapors in North Arlington have a choice of e-cigarette devices and flavors.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday moved to regulate e-cigarettes, proposing to ban sales to anyone under 18 and requiring warning labels on the devices and FDA approval for new products. It is the first attempt by the FDA to regulate e-cigarettes, which, according to the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association, are used by more than 3.5 million people in the United States.

For many stores that sell e-cigarettes and other products, the announcement means only a small change in business practices. The proposed rules would not restrict flavored products for the devices, online sales or advertising, which public health advocates say attract children.

Fans of the devices were more concerned about New Jersey’s proposal to tax e-cigarettes the same as regular cigarettes, a plan that could reap the state $35 million a year. New Jersey currently collects $2.70 for every pack of cigarettes.

State Treasurer Andrew P. Sidamon-Eristoff proposed the tax in testimony before the Legislature last month. “Our goal is to achieve rough parity with the tax burden on conventional cigarettes,” he said. “Why? Our main concern is public health.”

Delissa Carbone, who switched from regular to electronic cigarettes last year, was not impressed. “I would think that New Jersey would want people to stop smoking tobacco, given the health effects and the cost of caring for people when they get sick. They should not be making it more expensive.”

E-cigarettes have become a big business, with estimated U.S. sales between $1.5 billion and $2 billion last year, and the numbers continue to rise. A starter kit costs about $50 and individual flavored cartridges for the devices cost about $8. Smokers like e-cigarettes because the nicotine-infused vapor looks like smoke but doesn’t contain the thousands of chemicals, tar or odor of regular cigarettes.

But health and public policy experts can’t say for certain whether the electronic devices are a good thing or a bad thing overall, whether they help smokers kick the habit or are a gateway to ordinary paper-and-tobacco cigarettes.

Christian Angeles, the owner of Prestige Vaping in Belleville, said the proposed federal rules only reinforce policies his store has in place. He has a sign on the front door warning that customers must be at least 18 and employees are instructed to check IDs. In addition, the store lists ingredients and already has warning labels on many products.

John Lumba, the owner of NJ Vapors in North Arlington, said his store also does not allow the sale to minors and even has cameras throughout the store to help identify anyone who looks underage.

“If it was my child coming into the store, I wouldn’t want them to be sold an e-cigarette at such a young age, so why would we sell one to someone like that?” Lumba said.

At Flash Vapor, which operates eight stores in North Jersey and New York, including the Little Falls location, a huge chalkboard covering a wall offers customers flavors for their electronic cigarettes, including tobacco cherry, banana nut bread and root beer candy.

“Ninety-nine percent of our customers are former smokers,” said Joe Vilagos, who was manning the counter. “I used to smoke three or four cigarettes before I even got out of bed. Not anymore.”

Some public health experts say a measured approach is the right one. They think that the devices can help smokers quit.

“This could be the single biggest opportunity that’s come along in a century to make the cigarette obsolete,” said David Abrams, executive director of the Schroeder Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies at the American Legacy Foundation.

Others warn that the FDA regulations could have unintended consequences.

“If the regulations are too heavy-handed, they’ll have the deadly effect of preventing smokers from quitting by switching to these dramatically less harmful alternatives,” said Jeff Stier, senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C.

Scientists haven’t finished much research on e-cigarettes, and the studies that have been done have been inconclusive. The government is pouring millions into research to supplement independent and company studies on the health risks of e-cigarettes and other tobacco products — as well as who uses them and why.

“There are far more questions than answers,” acknowledged Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products.

In addition to mandating warning labels that say nicotine is an addictive chemical, the proposed FDA rules would require e-cigarette makers to disclose their products’ ingredients. They would not be allowed to claim their products are safer than other tobacco products.

In New Jersey, state officials point to research that found that adolescents who used vaping devices were more likely to smoke cigarettes and less likely to quit smoking. Health Commissioner Mary O’Dowd also called for tax parity on e-cigarettes in her budget testimony last month, noting that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported use of the devices among middle and high school students had doubled between 2011 and 2012.

“This initiative is about protecting our children from a lifelong addiction to nicotine,” she testified.